Hi and Help!I have a question - Should I do another TC846 for both alleged overpayments and restart the dispute process or something else?

I have been having an ongoing battle with HMR regarding alleged overpayments and after 5 years, for the first time I actually have a written letter that outlines the alleged overpayments, it says,(joint claim) 03/04 £1068.25this is recovered, after 4 years I have letter saying this award was closed in October 05 (hurrah! but this is short lived)(joint claim)(joint claim) 04/05 241.77 - outstanding(single claim 06/07 676.36 - outstanding

2 weeks ago the debt collection agency rung and asked me for payment, and when I told her they were still in dispute she was dismissive and said you've tried and lost that. I wrote to CSSG and they replied saying there were no outstanding disputes and they also said,...You are entitled to dispute any of your tax credit overpayments, however if you continue to dispute tax years 2003-04 or 2006-07 we will not suspend recovery of these overpayments ...Can they do this? I thought if an OP was in dispute they couldn't chase the £The problem with OPs in 04/05 and 06/07 is that everytime I ask for a breakdown of the OPs their response keepts saying the op includes a cross year recovery from 03/04. So I write again and tell them there is no outstanding 03/04 overpayment and we go round the houses again. So is it another TC846? and should I do a separate dispute form for each OP?

ps I could not have come this far without your assistance, this is a really valuable site, that has helped me tremendously. Thanks

I'm just a simple webmaster, but my thoughts are that you're a bit past the TC846 stage. If it were me, I'd probably contact 2nd Tier Complaints with a darn good letter. And my MP - which Party does yours belong to?

Anyway, I've flagged your post to Paula. She's very busy nowadays, but will respond - although it may take a few days.

It sounds to me as though you need to get HMRC to write you a proper explanation of what went wrong and where. Meanwhile, insist that you are disputing all the years where there was an overpayment. Were you happy at having the year 2003/4's alleged overpayment recovered automatically? Did you get a chance to dispute that, or did you get one of those lovely standard letters stating "you cannot appeal against this overpayment", or word to that effect? It's bullsh1t, of course, as HMRC hides behind its own definitions of "appeal" and "dispute" to deliberately mislead the public, and even if you can't "appeal" (which, to HMRC, means query the amount you were awarded in the first place), you can "dispute" (which is when you argue that you may well have been overpaid but it is meaningless if you were, because it was not your fault but HMRC's, and should be written off).

Not a lot of people know that you can dispute unfair recovery of sums already paid off, or being paid off by instalments, so long as you acted in good faith, suspect that HMRC caused the problem in some way through its odd systems or errors, and never had the chance to dispute the problem at the time to a conclusion you were happy with. I was even told this by a senior HMRC official! So you might want to claim that 2003/4 was unfairly recovered, and if you win, they will have to return all the money they clawed back at the time!

You'll need to lodge a dispute letter, ask for a proper year-by-year explanation (which you can query ad infinitum if it seems inaccurate, sloppily-written or indecipherable to anyone but a maths first class honours graduate) and get your data sent to you. Then - together with our "how to dipute" guide found at You must be logged in to see this link. - you have a lovely DIY toolkti for launching and winning your dispute!

Enjoy!

Winning is empowering. I am sure you can do it. Good luck!

Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

hi,First off sorry for the duplicate post, I put it in the wrong place the first time. Thanks for your very useful information I will be taking it much further, your replies are really appreciated. I have included my MP in the previous correspondence but after his initial response (his shortened reply was 'give in and pay up' the 03/04 OP that had inexplicable risen from £142, to £1142, I told him I would ignore his advice and dispute on)I don't hold much faith in his support for this ongoing problem!I have got a fairly well documented history and my SAR info, so far I haven't sent this to them, I have been arguing each point using it; should I send them a copy?

Just had another thought, on re-reading your reply,is there anyway I can check my incomes and the WTC/CTC applicable amount for previous years, 03/04, 04/05 and 05/06?

I am asking because of the comment about automatic repayments. We wern't given any option, with the repay 03/04 they just it out of the 04/05. I also (now) have evidence (from the SAR) that when I first queried the 04/05 OP they didn't actually look at it because it was a 'minus', whatever that means, but they still wrote back and told me that the OP was my responsibility and I should pay.

The 05/06 OP is from a single claim, BUTI have a letter that says it includes a cross year recovery from 03/04 that was a joint claimI also have a letter saying there is no OP for 03/04I also have a letter saying 05/06 isn't two awards OPs put together.

I have also previously gone into melt down over this; its really difficult to maintain momentum when you're trying to hold down a job, family etc... but I am determined this time to do what it takes, even if I have to do every step of the dispute process

Update,I have just finished a phone call from the complaints department, she was very sympathetic, acknowledged that todate the correspondence I have received has been atrocious and apologised. She also acknowledged that there are always overpayments and its always the claimants responsibility, its just unfortunate.

However, she is also going to continue to look into the 04/05 claim.

But the really bad news is she says the 05/06 claim is completely recoverable because the WTC did everything in line with COP26, the OP is my responsibility, even though I updated them with salary increases, the scanned annual declaration says my income was nil, because I had put 00.00 as my self employed income (I'm not self employed). I don't think I argued my case very effectively because apparently this is now my responsibility, 'they do a reasonably payment plan'. What next?

Hi Raving You will need separate TC846 for the joint claim o/p dispute and also for the single claim o/p dispute. Any monies trying to be recovered by HMRC from joint claims should be requested 50/50 with the other applicant in the joint claim. Regardless if the other applicant has a claim ongoing now or not.

Okay now the cross year recovery for 03-04 is causing problems in getting a breakdown from HMRC for 03-04, 04-05, 06-07. (What happened to 05-06?)

hi,First off sorry for the duplicate post, I put it in the wrong place the first time. Thanks for your very useful information I will be taking it much further, your replies are really appreciated. I have included my MP in the previous correspondence but after his initial response (his shortened reply was 'give in and pay up' the 03/04 OP that had inexplicable risen from £142, to £1142, I told him I would ignore his advice and dispute on)I don't hold much faith in his support for this ongoing problem!I have got a fairly well documented history and my SAR info, so far I haven't sent this to them, I have been arguing each point using it; should I send them a copy?

Raving

Don't help them one iota !! Keep all your SAR docs for yourself to use as evidence. What you need to do is work out what is your single claim and what is your joint claim and work on them separately.

Update,I have just finished a phone call from the complaints department, she was very sympathetic, acknowledged that to date the correspondence I have received has been atrocious and apologized. She also acknowledged that there are always overpayment's and its always the claimants responsibility, its just unfortunate.

However, she is also going to continue to look into the 04/05 claim.

But the really bad news is she says the 05/06 claim is completely recoverable because the WTC did everything in line with COP26, the OP is my responsibility, even though I updated them with salary increases, the scanned annual declaration says my income was nil, because I had put 00.00 as my self employed income (I'm not self employed). I don't think I argued my case very effectively because apparently this is now my responsibility, 'they do a reasonably payment plan'. What next?

Raving

It's their word against your's regarding the Self Emp income scanned in at £00.00.DO NOT say yes to any payment plan !!!!!!!! You have come so far already to not see this thru to the end. Also I would just like to say they say in one breath you can dispute any overpayment's with your tax credits, but just not the 2003-2004 or 2005-2006 tax years !!!!! LMAO !!!! They must by law suspend any recovery if your o/p is being disputed. The only way it would recommence is if you told them your reasons of disputing and they tell you they have looked into your dispute and it doesn't matter about any of your reasons you still owe us. It's only if you come up with new facts regarding the cause of o/p.

When you say can you want to find out about income etc for the tax years what do you mean, your income or the amount they award???

"I have included my MP in the previous correspondence but after his initial response (his shortened reply was 'give in and pay up' the 03/04 OP that had inexplicable risen from £142, to £1142, I told him I would ignore his advice and dispute on)I don't hold much faith in his support for this ongoing problem!"

Please could you tell us who your MP is? I bet you he is Nu Liebore!

I do think, however, that your MP's initial response could successfully be challenged. My own Nu Liebore MP, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, basically reiterated in her first reply to me the arguments HMRC had given her as to why I should pay up (based on my earning NIL one year for a 37 hour week, and forty-something thousand [I wish!] the very next), showing clearly that the first response can sometimes just be a quick fob-off and on with the next constituent's grievance. I told her a few times more that this was bullsh1t, and in the end she was moderately helpful, considering the matter of her sad affliction as a Brownite. She then went on to describe to the Public Accounts Committee my case as "a catalogue of errors" on HMRC's part, a much-quoted phrase of mine, so I suppose she became of use later. My point being that the Nu Liebore party line is that tax credits are the best thing since sunshine and that everything is fragrant and glorious in the garden or tax credits. To deviate from this - as the exceptional Diane Abbott and Jon Cruddas, among a few others, have done takes courage and true commitment to what I thought socialism was supposed to be about - protecting ordinary people from the excesses of the mighty, powerful and corrupt.

Is it worth talking to your MP again? After all, he may have just taken the easy option based on the line HMRC gave him, and MPs do not understand tax credits and may not immediately realise how wrong HMRC get these things. In some ways, converting a Nu Liebore man is potentially more useful than preaching to the converted, as word needs to get through to Brown that his system is, quite plainly, unjust and wrong.

If you don't have any success, or feel him to be a lost cause, it would still be good to know who he is, if you can do that. There is usually a reason for this denial, and it would be interesting to google what his general views on tax credits are, his role, career aspirations, etc. Obviously not a Rebel!

Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS AND USEFUL ADVICE, IT REALLY INSPIRES ME TO KEEP FIGHTING THE FIGHT!!!!In response,1. I had no idea that you could dispute money they have clawed back - but to be honest I am that tired I really don't know if I have the energy to do that as well as argue about the current dispute! But it should be made more widely known.

2. The MP is question in Bob Laxton, Derby North, I wrote to him in November 2008 (and again in Feb 2010). I really don't think the TC system is one of his specialisms, because although he did write to them on my behalf, and they looked at 30/04 again, he completely accepted their response without an further challenge, saying,

'I know you will be disappointed with the review but I feel there is nothing be gained by taking it further' and that was his final say on the matter.

However, I ignored his advice because the 03/04 OP was over £1000. Good job I did because it had been recovered in Oct 2005). Can you believe the audacity and incompentence of the review panel???? It was recovered in 2005 and in 2008 they wrote to tell an MP that the OP was still recoverable! In my job I would be made accountable if I made such terrible and glaring errors.

He (Bob Laxton) also forward my letter to Steven Timms, The Treasure Minister, which I am more than happy to scan and email to you if you would like a copy. (The tone of the letter is how much they have done to improve the system)

The latest update:Yet another phone call, I am now on first name terms with a complaints officer, who to be fair, is relatively human, in so far as she did apologise for the total mess they have made of my dispute/complaint, (but offered nothing more than these platitudes, for the stress, inconvenience and hours of work I have had to put in).

The good news is after our last phone call conversation, she has decided not to pursue the alleged OP £241.77 recovery of the joint claim for 2004/05. I am now hoping for a written explanation in the post for this U turn; I will let you know. BUT the bad news is they still want to recover the single claim OP for 06-07.06-07 alleged OP is £676.36, which according to the complaints officer is made up of £533 06/07 + £142.72.Regarding the £142.72 I have a selection of letters which discribe this as a 'cross year recovery' which I thought was 03/04 because its the same amount, and no one has identified which year its from. 2 years on, they now tell me its from an OP which occured 07/08. Apparently this is a cross year recovery from 06-07 that they were going to collect in 07-08 but couldn't because my claim changed from single back to joint. I have already paid a separate OP request of £91, for an 07/08 OP and thought that was the end of it. How wrong can you be?

However, there is a little bit of history to this single claim 06-07 dispute;O6-07 came and went, I claimed CT and WT, updated forms, signed and got on with life.30 Jan 2008, I got a letter informing me that they were going to investigate my claim because my finalised decision notice does not match the income from employer.From this point on I have been in dispute about how the OP occurred.I have written and phone records identifying when I updated HM with changes in salary, but NONE of this matters, because on the annual declaration I wrote 00.00 in the self employed bit (I am NOT self employed) The scanned declaration has picked that up and used it as the final salary. Despite having tons of evidence to tell them categorically;a) I am not self employed.b) I have phoned twice and have the recordings, in that particular tax year to update them with changes to salary and hours.c) They have at least 3 records confirming who my employer is (confirming I am an employee)

She went on to say that they have not contravened COP26 because they acted on the final declaration which is my responsibility. Any anomolies, lack of cross referencing and poor integrity of the system is not relevant for this dispute. So I have to pay.

It is now going to be really difficult to to find new evidence to fight this with, because I think I've thown just about everything at them, and they still won't budge. They are now saying they have looked at it and none of my reasons matter, therefore it won't be in dispute anymore and I will have to pay.I have asked for our telephone discussion to be formalised in writing, which I should receive in the next week or 2. I think the only thing I can (and will) do now query the year-by-year explanation ad infinitum.

Where can I check my entitlements for this year? - 'cos I can't do it in my head!

I have been challenging my OP for around 5 years, I have spent hours reading codes of practice, award notices, indecipherable letters in HM speak, and hours writing to review panels, complaints department and my MP. On the bright side since finding this site and using your advice and support I have reduced a combined alleged overpayment of £2060.13 to £676.36. Fingers crossed I can get them to see this is an error as well.

LMAO means laughing my a**e off.Working out award entitlements is easy. Firstly work out what elements you would qualify for and also the amount each elements is worth, in your case, it would be thisBasic Adult - £1665Lone Parent/2nd Adult £1640Child £1765Child £1765Family Element £ 545Total £7380Then find out what the 1st Initial taper point is for 06-07 tax year the amount was £5220Now get your yearly income which was £15228 minus the initial taper(£5220) then multiply by 37% leaves at total £3702.96. This amount is what needs to be taken away from the element totals you qualified for, which would leave you with a balance of £3677.04So for 06-07 if your circumstances remained the same throughout the tax year then this is the amount you should of been awarded for the full period.I am so pleased that you have been able to reduce the original overpayment amount, and also glad to here that this forum helped you achieve that. Many others do not think they can dispute or don't know how to begin disputing any overpayment's that may crop up. But it does go to show that we can and do get results, by questioning HMRC.

Hi,thanks for the help with the sums, much appreciated.Can you shed some light on the following?I have been checking my award/phone records from the SAR for the single claim 2006/07(alleged OP £676.36: 06/07 £533.58 and 07/08 £142.78)There are at least 4 phone records providing updated information on salary and hours worked and award notices. in July 07 the scanned form registered self employed income 00.00, which I did not query because its true! what was not clear was it was the ONLY income figure they used. There is no copy of this declaration in the SAR. How can use this to fight my case?ANDOn one of the phone records, a HM help line staff, says because my income for 2005/06 was only £7046 I am allowed to earn £25,000 more in 2006/07 before my award will change - is this relevant to my overpayment? Because the £142 amount is apparently from single claim 07/08 that ran from 6th April 07 - 14.07.07 but I did not receive any WT/CT for that period because I did not qualify for any payment just an overpayment.ANDthey have used 2005/06 salary figures to work out the 2006/07 award because of the £25000 disregard but I still got an overpayment of £142.

Can you help/direct me to an explanation regarding this £25000 disregard clause?

With regards to the copy of the declaration, not being present in the SAR document. There might be a couple of reasons for this, but need to know a little bit about you and your claim history before I can determine where the problem might lie. You have had numerous claims over the years, going from joint to single claims. Each period will have different entitlements and award amounts. You need to firstly, look at when the claims start and stop. If you update HMRC as and when you needed to regarding your changes, then there should be no days missed out. For example joint claim ends 15-06-05 fresh single claim starts 16-06-2005. Also the dates on this single claim should also have the same include from dates, if there are any different include from dates which don't match up with the start from date then make a note. I am a little bemused as to how HMRC say you were overpaid in 07/08, when you say you never got any WTC or CTC payments from the joint claim just an overpayment? How can this be if you never qualified for any entitlement? I will say that most of the time when claimants change from single to joint awards or vice versa and they have children on the fresh claim being made, the system backdates 6 weeks. This is not an automatic system design, it is manually input by TCO processing staff. They should look at what date the old claim ended, what date the fresh claim was received and if the fresh claim was made the same day the old claim ended, then the 6 weeks backdate should not be input, but it often is, causing many claimants to be overpaid through no fault of their own. When anyone has an overpayment, should it be from a single or a joint claim, which has now ceased. HMRC can not take the amounts overpaid from any fresh claim made for Tax Credits. For example, if you had a single claim, then a joint claim, then back to a single and you got overpaid on both, single and joint claims, HMRC can not and do not recover any monies from your current claim unless this current claim has been also overpaid. Hope that makes sense. You have no copy of the 'Dodgy S/E declaration' HMRC say caused the problem. Would you definitely have sent this form and not gave income details over the telephone to complete the end of year figures? Can you remember writing 00.00 in the self employment income box? Did you write 00.00 in any other of the income boxes? Any end of year declaration details can be seen on screen prints titled AMBS Renewals Section 17-Current position. Here you will be able to see the date the declaration was sent to out you and what date you replied. Then look for screen prints titled AMBS Renewals Section 17-Declaration Details here you should see the amounts given for the end of year, what type of income it was and also if the income was Actual or Estimated.

The £25k disregard is VERY misleading. If your income in the current tax year is different from your income in the previous year, then the amount of tax credit you get may change. If your income changes in any of the following ways, then you need to tell the Tax Credit Office about it. A tax year runs from 6 April one year to 5 April the next.

•If your income for the current tax year is expected to be less than last year, you may be entitled to extra tax credits. •If your income for the current tax year is expected to be more than £25,000 higher than income for the last year, you may get less tax credits. •There's no need for you to tell the Tax Credit Office if you expect your income for the current year to be no more than £25,000 higher than your income for the last year. It will make no difference to the amount of tax credit you will receive for the current year although the increased income will be taken into account in the following year. So what that means is, if you expect your end of year income is going to be higher than last years end of year income, you don't have to report it to HMRC, but if you want to report the new higher income you can, if you do report your estimated higher income to HMRC, they will adjust your award during the year, which you expect to get higher income. If you don't report your estimated higher income until the declaration then your entitlement for the new tax year will be reduced to recover any monies overpaid.

Hi,FYI. I have found a copy of the declaration in my SAR! and I did fill it correctly with my income details - I am forwarding a copy today and hopefully common sense will prevail. Many thanks for the low down on the £25,000 disregard, I now have a back up plan.

Good luck with that. What worked for me was: getting proper explanations from HMRC at every stage and getting them to explain anything I didn't understand. Analysing their responses and querying anything they stated as fact which I considered untrue, offering my evidence for it. Using the data I had been sent to prove when HMRC was lying or being "economical with the truth". Checking with the data that their assertions were true, and exposing when things did not tie up. Basically, you will need to evidence from your documents and call records anything which is in question by HMRC, just as you are doing with the copy of your declaration. You've obviously realised that you need to send a copy whilst holding back your original, as having lost it once, they can do so again! Best of luck!

Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

Letter from HMRC received today. I quote,'Although you have provided a copy of your annual declaration ... When this document was scanned we failed to take into account this information. An award notice was therefore issued to you on 19th July 2007 which showed your annual income as £0.00. .... You failed to contact us to advise that the information on this award notice was incorrect, therefore you failed to meet your responsibilities as detailed in COP26...'

I can't believe the stupidity of these people, the award notice in question does not say annual income 0.00 it says income from self employment 0.00 which is correct and at the time of reading in July 2007 that was sufficient for me - why would I query something that isn't wrong?

Outraged at the unjustice of it all - how come they can make mistake after mistake and its always the claimants fault grrrrrrr

Feeling angry and despondent - like most people in this situation, I just want it to go away. Not able to focus on the next step- another complaint letter? Cite the 25,000 disregard rule that they failed to apply correctly? or do I go to adjudication? I've forewarned my husband in a fit of rage that I would rather go to prison than pay.